Enactive media

This paper proposes the concept of enactive system as an alternative to the standard human-computer system and elaborates the idea of content mediation as enactive media. The authors' system consists of the two elements coupled in a holistic manner by means of bodily and spatial involvement, or enactment. Such a system is recursive by nature, involving the impact of the technology on the human agent as well as the effect of the human experience on the technology. Instead of the standard explicit interface, there is an implicit connecting surface, based on unconscious psycho-physiological reactions. The aim is not only to point out an analytic approach to existing media systems but also to develop radically novel media concepts implied by the enactive systems.

The article explores interactive storytelling in augmented and virtual reality. It is based on the research project Immersive Media Lab, bridges the gap between technological developments and their application, and aims to combine art, economy, and science. Due to their increased availability, virtual and immersive technologies have not only seen a resurgence in their popularity but also offer intriguing new perspectives regarding their use in different contexts. Consequently, the notions of interactivity and immersion also play significant roles in the study of storytelling in conjunction with virtual and augmented reality. The Immersive Media Lab has employed state-of-the-art AR/VR technology in five use cases: VR Interaction, Artistic Motion Tracking in AR/VR, Audio AR for Industry, AR/VR Interfaces for Industry, and AR Education for Patients. All of them, but one, developed prototypical applications related to the central concept of interactive storytelling. Furthermore, each use case addresses three distinct dimensions of storytelling: the production of a coherent story, the collection and transfer of knowledge, and the specificity of the technology used. Covering the areas of Creative Media, Smart Manufacturing, and Healthcare leads to a particular research design, as each area is connected to different research contexts and comes with appliances of immersive media. The article focuses on various theoretical inputs regarding interactive and immersive storytelling in general and relates them to the academic background of the five use cases. Furthermore, each use case defined a story in its context, the purpose of its narration, and its media-specific context. Finally, the paper reflects on the outcomes of the use cases and outlines their potential for future applications of interactive storytelling in immersive media.

This paper proposes the concept of enactive system as an alternative to the standard human-computer system and elaborates the idea of content mediation as enactive media. The authors' system consists of the two elements coupled in a holistic manner by means of bodily and spatial involvement, or enactment. Such a system is recursive by nature, involving the impact of the technology on the human agent as well as the effect of the human experience on the technology. Instead of the standard explicit interface, there is an implicit connecting surface, based on unconscious psycho-physiological reactions. The aim is not only to point out an analytic approach to existing media systems but also to develop radically novel media concepts implied by the enactive systems.

Digitization has been changing the methods of production, distribution and use of written and audiovisual products, according to a process of "platformization" (Van Dijck, Poell, de Waal 2018). Following the "network society" model (Castells 1996), platforms, as creative ecosystems (Montanari 2018) and medial ecosystems (Pescatore, Innocenti 2011), have introduced a new mindset that connects producers and consumers within a digital environment, breaking down space-time barriers, controlling data and simplifying the supply chain (Nasta and Pirolo, 2017). So even the audiovisual field has undergone a transition to companies with a service provider role, following a user-based model that feeds different forms of participation and spreadability through intermediality and storytelling (Abercrombie and Longhurst, 1998; Jenkins, Ford, Green 2013).The project of digitization of written material of the Zavattini Archive (Biblioteca Panizzi, Reggio Emilia) starts from a pr...

The article explores interactive storytelling in augmented and virtual reality. It is based on the research project Immersive Media Lab, bridges the gap between technological developments and their application, and aims to combine art, economy, and science. Due to their increased availability, virtual and immersive technologies have not only seen a resurgence in their popularity but also offer intriguing new perspectives regarding their use in different contexts. Consequently, the notions of interactivity and immersion also play significant roles in the study of storytelling in conjunction with virtual and augmented reality. The Immersive Media Lab has employed state-of-the-art AR/VR technology in five use cases: VR Interaction, Artistic Motion Tracking in AR/VR, Audio AR for Industry, AR/VR Interfaces for Industry, and AR Education for Patients. All of them, but one, developed prototypical applications related to the central concept of interactive storytelling. Furthermore, each us...

This paper discusses the opportunities for using cinematic virtual reality (CVR) to enhance our understanding of the imagined metaverse – the recently emerged new digital age phenomenon. The paper approaches the concept of the metaverse from an interaction point of view, which is one of the more common characteristics used to conceptualise the metaverse, approaching it as a phenomenon involving the convergence of real and virtual worlds, but also humans and machines. The article investigates the possibilities of using the relatively unexplored phenomenon of CVR, which facilitates the desired interaction while requiring the least prior knowledge and skills from the user, and thus might ease our acquaintance with the imagined metaverse. The difference between virtual reality (VR) and CVR lies in the generation of the VR world: traditional VR is typically generated through 3D graphics processing and audio triggers in real time, whereas CVR exclusively uses pre-rendered pictures and sou...

This paper discusses the opportunities for using cinematic virtual reality (CVR) to enhance our understanding of the imagined metaverse – the recently emerged new digital age phenomenon. The paper approaches the concept of the metaverse from an interaction point of view, which is one of the more common characteristics used to conceptualise the metaverse, approaching it as a phenomenon involving the convergence of real and virtual worlds, but also humans and machines. The article investigates the possibilities of using the relatively unexplored phenomenon of CVR, which facilitates the desired interaction while requiring the least prior knowledge and skills from the user, and thus might ease our acquaintance with the imagined metaverse. The difference between virtual reality (VR) and CVR lies in the generation of the VR world: traditional VR is typically generated through 3D graphics processing and audio triggers in real time, whereas CVR exclusively uses pre-rendered pictures and sou...

This paper proposes the concept of enactive system as an alternative to the standard human-computer system and elaborates the idea of content mediation as enactive media. The authors' system consists of the two elements coupled in a holistic manner by means of bodily and spatial involvement, or enactment. Such a system is recursive by nature, involving the impact of the technology on the human agent as well as the effect of the human experience on the technology. Instead of the standard explicit interface, there is an implicit connecting surface, based on unconscious psycho-physiological reactions. The aim is not only to point out an analytic approach to existing media systems but also to develop radically novel media concepts implied by the enactive systems.

This paper proposes the concept of enactive system as an alternative to the standard human-computer system and elaborates the idea of content mediation as enactive media. The authors' system consists of the two elements coupled in a holistic manner by means of bodily and spatial involvement, or enactment. Such a system is recursive by nature, involving the impact of the technology on the human agent as well as the effect of the human experience on the technology. Instead of the standard explicit interface, there is an implicit connecting surface, based on unconscious psycho-physiological reactions. The aim is not only to point out an analytic approach to existing media systems but also to develop radically novel media concepts implied by the enactive systems.

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In which aspects and to what extent can one regard as “narrative” the spatial experience provided by a museum route, a urban building, a multimedia interactive environment, or an immersive videogame? Under which conditions may spatiality be constitutive of a narratively organized interactive experience? What are the relationships between a represented pictorial space and a designed material space, when their narrative roles are taken into account? And what are the socio-cultural or political implications of the mediated interactions between individuals and environments?

Taken together, the possible answers to such questions allow us to grasp some specific features of contemporary media experience, which is broadly characterized by a special emphasis on the articulations between bodily interactions, spatial constructs, and technological innervations. At the same time, the distinctive features of contemporary media experience – irrespective of whether they take place in everyday, entertainment or artistic environments – allow us to rethink on a general theoretical level issues of narrativity, interaction, or immersion.

This special section of Imago (No. 22/2021) aims at investigating the narrative configurations which emerge from the interaction between bodies, spaces, and technologies in contemporary media experiences. More specifically, it addresses the projects which prefocus and orient those experiences, and the forms they assume depending on the medium which is taken under consideration.

A walk suspended in mid-air, a fall at breakneck speed towards a fatal impact with the ground, an upside-down flip into space, the drift of an astronaut in the void… Analysing a wide range of films, this book brings to light a series of recurrent aesthetic motifs through which contemporary cinema destabilizes and then restores the spectator’s sense of equilibrium. The 'tensive motifs' of acrobatics, fall, impact, overturning, and drift reflect our fears and dreams and offer embodied forms of transcendence of the limits of our human condition along with an awareness of their insurmountable nature. Adopting the approach of 'Neurofilmology'—an interdisciplinary method that puts filmology, perceptual psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive neuroscience into dialogue—this book implements the paradigm of embodied cognition in a new ecological epistemology of the moving-image experience.

This introduction to the monographic section on "VR Storytelling" aims to outline some of the principal transformations that VR is imparting to audiovisual language and experience, with a particular focus on the impact of these innovations on storytelling. The essays of the section span a variety of theoretical approaches and backgrounds, argumentative styles and case studies (e.g. documentaries, games, art), but all of them share a similar rhetorical attitude: underscoring the potential and novelty of VR but, at the same time, identifying a series of remediations and limitations. In particular, they will show that most of the contemporary discourses on VR need to be reframed critically in order to reflect more objectively on complex notions and dynamics such as screen, interactivity, immersion, presence, embodiment, illusion and empathy.

An incipient neurofilmological turn in film and media studies promises to reframe the study of the film experience into a post-cognitive episteme that stresses the idea that the perception of visual and acoustic stimuli implies the activation of embodied forms of simulation. According to the “embodied simulation” hypothesis, the significance of the film experience emerges from the interactive mutuality of an agent (or organism) and environment, and perception evokes internal forms of action that support an empathic understanding of the character’s gestures, intentions, and emotions. These dynamics can be extended to the film’s low-level features (e.g. cinematography, camera movements, editing) and allow one to rethink the aesthetics of the film experience in the light of multimodal sensory perception.

Although the theoretical references of the embodied and enactive approach are patent (e.g. Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology and James Gibson’s ecology of perception), the endless appearance of new ideas risks losing one’s bearings in the traditional commitments of the field. For example: the internal re-production of the observed movements, the empathetic nature of the film-spectator relationship, and the understanding of the external world through imitation recall the principle of isomorphism – one of the central (and debated) ideas of Gestalt psychology; the so called body-mind problem and the enactivist claim that the body in as inseparable part – if not the very origin – of perception and cognition, remind one of the gestaltist fundamental claim that the human subject is able to organize local features into a larger and coherent whole; the centrality of the organism-environment coupling recalls Gestalt figure-ground reversibility and Kurt Lewin’s field theory. A number of theories proposed that are influenced by Gibson’s ecological theory but open to brain research do not countenance that such an approach would be contrary to his theorization.

As a result, their theoretical commitments of phenomenal realism and naturalistic reduction appear a lot like Rudolf Arnheim’s gestalt approach while eschewing or ignoring it. Authors are invited to go beyond Arnheim the situated author (who effectively stopped writing about film in the 1940s) to his grounding theoretical commitments. These come of course from Gestalt psychology and involve phenomenal realism (slippage between live action and animation), priority of expressive over discursive filmic features, and the value of neuroscientific heuristic reduction.

The call for essays for Cinéma&Cie #38 special issue “Gestalt Filmology. Insights on Form and Embodiment in the Film Experience” asks authors to situate their theories not according to genealogies or stated influences but basic meta-theoretical categories like naturalism (explanation) and representationalism (direct vs mediated).